New Books In Poetry

What is the best way to be a feminist? What is the best way to be a poet, a musician, or a painter? As a woman, what is the best way to be a friend to other women? The very idea that these water marks of success exist, goes against the nature of being biased and beautifully flawed humans who have been formed and informed by our lived experiences. Humans do not fit into neatly framed boxes. We are messy, shape-shifters–we resist social constructs and sometimes we resist our very definitions of ourselves. Bashaar employs a colloquial cadence to bring the reader into a conversation about defining oneself outside of these relationships/schools of thought and then in terms of them. This isn’t some sisterhood bullshit, some wannabe salvation for Eve, some half-assed claim that before god grew a cock there was no war, because I know there is violence in all of us–don’t try to tell me I wouldn’t slice a thing open to watch it die I would be remiss if I didn’t call attention to one